Apple announced today that people purchasing any new iOS device will receive the mobile versions of Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iPhoto, and iMovie for free. That's $40 worth of apps, as Pages, Keynote, and Numbers cost $9.99 each, and iPhoto and iMovie are $4.99 each.

The offer is good for any new buyers of iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. The offer does not appear to apply to people who have already purchased these devices, and it's not clear if there is any time limit on the deal.

27 Reader Comments

Interesting... I'm having a tough time as seeing this anything other than a statement that they don't really have that much more to add to spur users to upgrade, so they'll throw some existing apps in for free. Sure they'd work on your current devices, but why not get them for free* with an upgrade.

I'm really hoping that at the very least they mean new activations, rather than new purchases. I have a bunch of iPads sat in boxes that my school bought a few weeks ago. It will be incredibly frustrating if we end up having jumped the gun.

I'm surprised they didn't do this sooner. It's clearly meant to compete against Office being available for free for Windows Phone. Regardless of WP's struggling marketshare, it's still a value add-on that I don't think can be ignored. I always thought it was strange that Apple's Office Suite always cost money for iOS.

This is aimed at Google as well as at Microsoft. The Google web apps are freely available through the browser, but this doesn't compete well with a free native application.

It also shows up Microsoft's lateness in bringing their office suite to touch devices. If Microsoft Office was already a major player in the iOS landscape, the iWork suite would have a lot less relevance at any price. This is the situation on MacOS, for example. But, given that Microsoft Office is playing catch-up on iOS, the free availability of iWork creates a bit of a headache for Microsoft. They can't possibly compete. The only way they can release on iOS is with a paid application or via subscription. What exactly are they offering for that? As Tim Cook mentioned, Keynote is preferable to PowerPoint on a tablet. By the time Microsoft update their software to achieve parity, it will be too late. There are similar situations for Word and Excel.

The only thing that surprises me is that they didn't make the applications free downloads for all iOS users.

I'm really hoping that at the very least they mean new activations, rather than new purchases. I have a bunch of iPads sat in boxes that my school bought a few weeks ago. It will be incredibly frustrating if we end up having jumped the gun.

"iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers are free on the App Store for qualifying iOS 7 compatible devices activated after September 1, 2013."

This would seem to me to be a direct answer to Microsoft's obvious (but slow) moves to bring office to the iPad. Who would buy office if Apple's versions already came free, and installed.

The same people who buy Office for Mac despite the iLife apps being preinstalled.

That's not a good comparison. iLife and Office apps are quite different.

Not to the majority of users. Don't get me wrong, Office apps provide a lot more functionality, but only a small percentage of "power" users actually need and use the advanced features MS Office provides, and the bean counters of the world are going to look at this and say, "hey, why are we paying MS for licenses for apps that are free elsewhere?"

MS knows this, it's one of the reasons they've been searching for a new future, and one of the reasons Ballmer is out, they've been fearing this for years (I'm an ex-MS partner, they've been telling me this for a long time), now it's here. Of course they won't die, but if one of their main revenue sources is now free on other platforms companies will have to take this into consideration, and that is exactly what MS doesn't want -> any consideration that might throw MS Windows and Office out.

In the minds of the average user and the bean counter, iLife and Office are exactly the same thing, except the bean counter has to approve a huge regular payment to MS for one. This is big.

This would seem to me to be a direct answer to Microsoft's obvious (but slow) moves to bring office to the iPad. Who would buy office if Apple's versions already came free, and installed.

The same people who buy Office for Mac despite the iLife apps being preinstalled.

That's not a good comparison. iLife and Office apps are quite different.

Not to the majority of users. Don't get me wrong, Office apps provide a lot more functionality, but only a small percentage of "power" users actually need and use the advanced features MS Office provides, and the bean counters of the world are going to look at this and say, "hey, why are we paying MS for licenses for apps that are free elsewhere?"

MS knows this, it's one of the reasons they've been searching for a new future, and one of the reasons Ballmer is out, they've been fearing this for years (I'm an ex-MS partner, they've been telling me this for a long time), now it's here. Of course they won't die, but if one of their main revenue sources is now free on other platforms companies will have to take this into consideration, and that is exactly what MS doesn't want -> any consideration that might throw MS Windows and Office out.

In the minds of the average user and the bean counter, iLife and Office are exactly the same thing, except the bean counter has to approve a huge regular payment to MS for one. This is big.

I think you're thinking of iWork, which is not free with Macs (but is now free with iOS devices.)

iLife is free on Macs (and now iOS devices as well) but the "iLife apps" are a video editor, a photo manager, and a digital music mixer.

This would seem to me to be a direct answer to Microsoft's obvious (but slow) moves to bring office to the iPad. Who would buy office if Apple's versions already came free, and installed.

The same people who buy Office for Mac despite the iLife apps being preinstalled.

That's not a good comparison. iLife and Office apps are quite different.

Not to the majority of users. Don't get me wrong, Office apps provide a lot more functionality, but only a small percentage of "power" users actually need and use the advanced features MS Office provides, and the bean counters of the world are going to look at this and say, "hey, why are we paying MS for licenses for apps that are free elsewhere?"

MS knows this, it's one of the reasons they've been searching for a new future, and one of the reasons Ballmer is out, they've been fearing this for years (I'm an ex-MS partner, they've been telling me this for a long time), now it's here. Of course they won't die, but if one of their main revenue sources is now free on other platforms companies will have to take this into consideration, and that is exactly what MS doesn't want -> any consideration that might throw MS Windows and Office out.

In the minds of the average user and the bean counter, iLife and Office are exactly the same thing, except the bean counter has to approve a huge regular payment to MS for one. This is big.

Blah. Despite me knowing that new iPhones were gonna be out this September, I bought a iPhone 5 back in July when there was a $99 (on contract) sale on them. I'm guessing I'm not eligible for the free iWork suite...

Until this year, I used Mac Keynote for presentations (college professor, so lots of teaching and conferences). I find it faster to use to make beautiful presentations than anything else. However, I got tired of it, after recent updates, pausing to find missing media, losing movies (relates to the first point), being flakey with recorded narration (sometimes they work fine, sometimes export failed), and not being able to export to pptx for compatibility (it can do ppt, but if you have embedded movies, this then makes a separate directory for those unlike pptx's merged files). I keep hoping for an update to show Apple has plans for it on the desktop, but all the updates have done is break things (the missing media thing comes from new versioning, apparently). iCloud versions or iOS versions have reduced functionality compared to even the current desktop version. For example, two upcoming features for the iCloud Keynote, yet to be added, are presenter notes and the ability to edit tables. I was hoping for an iWork announcement to make me willing to go back to Keynote, but a free version of Keynote [lite] for iOS isn't it.

I'm really hoping that at the very least they mean new activations, rather than new purchases. I have a bunch of iPads sat in boxes that my school bought a few weeks ago. It will be incredibly frustrating if we end up having jumped the gun.

"iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers are free on the App Store for qualifying iOS 7 compatible devices activated after September 1, 2013."

Apple really needs to kick up work on the iWork products and get them more up to date. They did loads of work on then between 2004 and 2009, and then gave up, apart from iOS and web versions.

I'm not sure they do, there is really no need to do a Microsoft and add in more features that people never use, and then redesign it all because they have ran out of features to add etc. I think they need a minor facelift if anything, because the only thing that is out of date about them is the datestamp on their initial release date. Minor updates to make them iCloud compatible etc and Mountain Lion versions compatible and all that have continued to happen, and they continue to offer more than most people need for what most people use them for. No need to get all enterprise features on them.